Social Psychology Chapter 2 Summary.docx

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School

McGill University

Department

Psychology

Course

PSYC 215

Professor

John Lydon

Semester

Winter

Description

Social Psychology Chapter 2 Summary
- In a letter of a convicted felon explaining his predicament with open honesty, businesses from the
south were more likely to send in sympathetic letters that excused him and commended his
honesty than those of the North
Why Do Social Psychologists do Research (And why should you read about it?)
- Hindsight bias: people’s tendency to be overconfident at how well they could have predicted
something in the past after finding out the answer
How Social Psychologists test behaviour
- Hypotheses are predictions about what will happen under certain circumstances
- Theory: a body of propositions designed to explain an aspect of the world
- Theories are more general than hypotheses which are more general than their empirical evidence
- A theory may suggest something broad like people strive to achieve consistent thoughts and
processes which births a hypothesis that if person A likes person B who dislikes person C, A will
either dislike person C or begin to dislike person B—this is tested in concrete circumstances more
specific than this one
- Participant observation: observing a phenomenon at close range
- Can be seen by psychologist who lived with groups of families in both working-class and middle-
class and observed some important differences which included less inclusion for the working-
class families of their children, they taught them a great deal less which didn’t have any effect on
their early school development but hindered their later years which are more complex
- Observations are unreliable and they must do further testing to prove their hypothesis
Archival Research
- Looking at archives including police reports, newspaper articles and record books can prove a
great deal without ever leaving the library
- Southerners for example are more likely to engage in insult-related homicides which was found
simply through examining police reports
Surveys
- Can be conducted using written questionnaires or interviews
- Sample of people in the survey must be randomized by giving each individual in society the
chance to be involved
- A convenience sample (where certain people are contacted) is biased b/c it includes many kinds
of one person and less of another kind
- Reading surveys in magazines are flawed b/c people who take time to do these polls are different
from regular people in society
- Readers who lost weight are more likely to respond to something than someone who hasn’t lost
weight
- A convenience sample survey is worse than no survey b/c it can be misleading
- The idea of Southerners being more likely to engage in insult-related homicides stems, not from
their assertion of solving problems with violence, but of their belief that if someone is a threat
that violence can solve that
- Southerners were more approving of violence when raising kids with regards to spanking etc.
- Historical hypothesis is that most of their ancestors weren’t passive farmers but herders who were
more tough and not necessarily violent but more ready to use violence b/c of fears of losing their
flock in an instant thus kids are raised without fear of violence but using it as means to protect
themselves
Correlation Research
- Correlation research: research not involving random assignment to different situations or
conditions and psychologists conduct just to see whether there is a relationship between the
variables. Determine whether a relationship exists between two or more variables
- Experimental research: randomly assigns people to different situations/conditions, enabling
researchers to make inferences about which situations/ conditions that affect people’s behaviour - Correlation is not causation
- Correlations show that they are related but they require further research, for ex: does 1 cause 2?
or is it the other way around (reverse causation)
- Or is there a third variable? (when variable 1 doesn’t cause 2 and 2 doesn’t cause 1, there is
another variable in play)
- For ex: are married people happier and healthier? Or are happy people more attractive and more
likely to get married? Or is it that healthier people attract mates thus being a 3 variable
- Correlation doesn’t prove causation because of self-selection (the experimenter not knowing what
history or other properties a participant brings to the experiment)—in example of married
couples, the researchers didn’t know if the participants brought good health into the marriage
- Correlational research looks at how strongly the factors are related, 0 being not related and 1
being completed related
- -1 means perfect negative correlation, 1 means perfect positive correlation
The value of correlation findings
- Correlations can alert a researchers to possible causal hypotheses
- Also best option if the experiment would be unethical or difficult
- Ruling out one hypothesis through research doesn’t prove anything rather it makes the link more
clear than